C3 Church Global

C3 Church Global
C3 Church Global
Location	International
Denomination	C3 Church Pentecostalism, Evangelical, Charismatic
Website	c3churchglobal.com
History
Founded	Easter 1980
Founder(s)	Phil Pringle and Christine Pringle
Significant associated people	185,000

C3 Church Global, formerly known as Christian City Church International (C3i), is a Charismatic church movement founded by Phil Pringle and Christine Pringle. The first church was begun at Dee Why on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia, and is now located in Oxford Falls. The movement changed its name to "C3 Church" in September 2008.

History

Phil and Christine Pringle arrived in Sydney, from New Zealand, in 1980 to begin a pentecostal church. Christian Centre, Northside, as it was originally known, began on the Northern beaches of Sydney.

Structure

C3 Church Global is governed by an international executive whose members are pastors of local churches. Each member oversees the leaders of various churches and/or other overseers. However, C3 Church Global does not have a centralised structure. Local churches are governed by a local board (or executive). Reflecting C3 Church Global's corporate model leadership philosophy, it is claimed that churches are "led by call and vision rather than democratic principles" and that decisions are not made by congregational voting but by the ministry team. C3 Church philosophy is based heavily on Prosperity Theology. Members are pressured to give a tithe to the church of a minimum of 10% of their pre-tax (gross) income, with Phil Pringle himself having claimed that those who fail to tithe are "robbing God" and that they are "cursed". (It is a simple matter to confirm this, as C3 post videos of their sermons on the web - including those whose content is singularly unambiguous in this regard).

Growth

The National Church Life Survey (NCLS) - the nationwide census of Australian church attendance, for the year 2004 found Christian City Churches contradicting an overall downward trend (to the effect of 7%) in church attendance across Australia, finding the C3 churches grew on average by 42% to a total membership of 11,400 (within Australia).^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, in the tri-annual worldwide conference held that year in Singapore, C3 Church revealed its plans to have over 1000 churches worldwide with an average attendance of 500 people throughout the movement, setting this goal to be attained by the year 2020, this goal being given the title of the "2020 Vision".

Music

Music from C3 Church Oxford Falls is published under C3 Worship. Music from various C3 churches in the United States is published under C3worship. As the central church of the movement, C3 Church Oxford Falls generally produces one album a year, under the leadership of music director Ryan Smith. C3 Church Oxford Falls digitally release their songs via their websites. Most C3 churches release their music online using the iTunes Store and similar online vendors.

On 2 April 2007, C3 Church (Oxford Falls) scored a hit single on the ARIA Australian Top 100 singles chart. The song, "Here We Go", entered at Number 37 on the ARIA Report (and Number 20 on the ARIA Physical Singles Chart and Number 6 on ARIA's New South Wales single sales list) making it the highest-selling religious pop song since 1970.^{[citation needed]} The single dropped out of the chart the following week though as it was only available at the church.^{[citation needed]}

In the media

C3 Church, as with any large or rapidly growing religious movement, has often found itself under media scrutiny, both in a positive and a more critical light. Recent examples include mention in the Business Review Weekly (BRW), Australian edition article "God's Millionaires".

External links

• C3 Church Global website
• C3 worship music website